Gaming Furever - Furry Game News

Dust: An Elysian Tail finally has a concrete release date! The furry fiesta hack-and-slash action RPG hybrid will be the last game released in the "Summer of Arcade" promotion from Xbox this year. It will be 1200 MSP ($15) and will be available only on XBLA on August 15th.

If you buy three of the five games in the Summer of Arcade lineup, you'll get 400 MSP back for your patronage. Here's the rest of the weekly releases: 

• July 18: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD, 1200 MS Points ($15)
• July 25: Wreckateer, 800 MS Points ($10)
• August 1: Deadlight, 1200 MS Points ($15)
• August 8: Hybrid, 1200 MS Points ($15)
• August 15: Dust: An Elysian Tail, 1200 MS Points ($15)

Who all is going to be picking up this game?

 

 

We had an amazing turnout for what turned out to be a pretty up and down day across the industry. There were quite a number of surprises across almost all press conferences. If you missed any of our streams, you can rewatch them all here!

Once again, thanks to all that joined us today. Be sure to join us for the Nintendo show tomorrow, GF Roundtable on Wednesday, and the wrap-up show on Thursday!

 

Xbox Press Briefing:

Note: Audio is muted until 34:50 mark. Sorry! >_<

EA & Ubisoft Briefings:

EA show starts at 19:45 | Break w/commentary at 1:27:17 | Ubisoft show starts at 2:23:43

Sony & Staff Opinions/Wrap-up:

Sony show starts at 18:00 | E3 Press Briefing Reactions and Wrap up starts at 1:50:25

Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit is shaping up to be a crazy good and dealy time. Featuring a rabbit who was caught being a 'pussy', Hell Yeah! is all about how said prince of darkness now has to kill all 100 monsters who saw the scandelous picture.

Trailer below! More info at www.ProjectHellYeah.com

Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch finally has a release date! The game will be hitting the American shores on January 22, 2013. Yes that's a ways off, but at least we have a solid day now. 

Ni no Kuni is an RPG being developed by Level-5/Studio Ghibli for the Playstation 3. It features a variety of characters and monsters, including some that are anthropomorphic in nature. In this trailer, you can see a number of animal-esque creatures. Check it out below!

Diablo 3 is the latest gaming hit from Blizzard and has broken previous records to become the most pre-ordered game on Amazon.com of all time.  This great title includes a bunch of easter eggs as well as various pop-culture references and Blizzard Employee cameos hidden within the game.

Previous Diablo games have been known for the infamous "Cow Level" in which players could unlock a secret level with cow enemies in it.  Blizzard stated at launch there was no "Cow Level"  well there isn't as far as anyone has seen but there is a PONY level.  Yes if you gather up the various items required you can unlock a hidden level called Whimseyshire which is a magical cute land of happy clouds and rainbows in an obvious poke at My Little Pony populated by magical purple and pink unicorns and other cute creatures that are all hostile.  They may look cute but they can kill you depending on your level when you enter it and Whimseyshire is available on each difficulty level with increasing loot quality and mob strength.

So, you want to go to Whimseyshire?  Here is a concise list of items needed to make the Staff of Herding which will unlock the level when you go to Old Tristram Road and speak to the Ghost of the Cow King.  Unlocking the level and entering grants a Feat of Strength.  Once you have the staff you can upgrade it to unlock Nightmare, Hell, and Inferno difficulty levels.  There are rumors of a hidden boss if you unlock it on Inferno.

Leroic’s Shinbone Act: 1 – Found Inside of the fireplace in Leroic’s Manor (Click on the burnt logs) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eIbYgfoBSs
The Black Mushroom Act: 1 – Found in the cathedral, most commonly floor 1 (Click mushroom pile) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-RLeehzfYA
Liquid Rainbow Act: 2 – Inside of a mysterious cave in act 2 (Dahlgur Oasis) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2irGFmldec0
Wirt’s Bell Act: 2 – Bought for 100,000 gold from Squirts in the Act 2 Bazaar http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FspdRzxIg_k
Gibbering Gemstone Act: 3 – Drops from Chiltara in the Caves of Frost(Found after Bridge of Korsikk) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxUh63yx4oU
Plans: Staff of Herding Act: 4 The recipe to craft the staff is a drop from Izual (Act 4 Boss) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geoODfSVs3U

And there you have it, good luck and happy pony slaying.  Apologies to MLP lovers for the equine carnage.

As far as other Easter Eggs go there is also a hidden level called Development Hell which obviously is on Hell difficulty and can be opened as an additional tomb in the Cemetery of the Forsaken.  If you unlock the 4th tomb you enter Development Hell in which you face off against all the developer staff of Diablo 3 turned into zombies etc.  Finally you must face and slay the game's producer which grants you a Feat of Strength.  The exact method of unlocking this hidden level is not clear and appears to be partially RNG or may be tied to having already earned other achievements.

We put the Game Producer down a few days ago and earned the achievement.

Finally there are the Blizzard cameo appearances.  A number of the senior GM's make a special appearance in the game as high level elite mobs.  Below is me taking down Zarhym who is one of the GM's that regularly interacts with players on the forums.

However the real prize is Bashiok and this famous Blizzard GM even has his own special achievement for defeating him which requires you to obtain a special item from and event and use it to fight him should you encounter this rare mob.  I am presently hunting Bashiok though he has yet to show himself on any difficulty level Normal, Nightmare, or Hell but from what I've heard he can appear in any difficulty his spawn chance though is very low.

Hopefully this helps you in your own quest for more hidden content in Diablo 3, good luck and happy hunting.

Posted today, the Playstation Blog has for us some new footage of Sly Cooper Thieves in Time running on the PS Vita. The port of the game will have exclusive PS Vita features, which are shown off in the demo. The game has an expected release period of Fall 2012.

Check out the video below for all that thievious Raccoonus action!

Source

It's been a long time since we've heard anything about the on-hold title, Beyond Good & Evil 2. Last we heard, the game was being put on hiatus until the next generation of consoles was going to be released.

 

A few screenshots of what looks to be Beyond Good & Evil 2 have been published by All Games Beta. No confirmation on if these are the real thing, but they sure look convincing!

 

Finally, we have some news concerning Dust: An Elysian Tail, the upcoming 2D action arcade game from Humble Hearts (otherwise known as Dean Dodrill.) The game was being shown at PAX East 2012 with a playable demo, and none other than the game's lone designer, Dean Dodrill, there to answer all the media's questions.

It looks like the game is shaping up to be quite the fun, furry adventure. The release date is still TBA, but on his site, Dean says that it "is nearing the final stages of development. While it's still too early to pinpoint a release date, I'm excited to start showing the game off." 

Check out a video of the interview Giant Bomb shot, complete with new gameplay from the game.

It's time for vertical fox jumping action! Released today by Namco Bandai, Rocket fox is the tale of "Guy Fox" and his friends as they fly around making mischief in the skies. "Enter the Inari Shrines with Guy and his faithful fox friends as they take to the skies with their flowerocket training. Help Guy light up the sky with jaw-dropping explosions and bursts of color as Guy rides fireworks from flowerocket to flowerocket." 

The game features:

• Follow the story of Guy Fox while you explore over 50 stages!
• Navigate Guy Fox through immersive 3D worlds
• Gather foxfire to unlock power-ups, effects, and new gear
• Unlock high-flying achievements, challenge your friends, and soar to the top of the online leaderboards
• Join Guy, Huli, and the rest of the foxes at Shifty Look to catch their on-going saga

It looks like a pretty fun romp, and is full of cute, furry friends. Grab it on the apple store here.

Thanks to @XandertheBlue for the tip!

Sony has finally announced the long-rumored melee fighting extravaganza, Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale. From that name, it's pretty easy to figure out what the game is all about, but just incase you needed a push in the right direction, here's a trailer with the game director explaining the inspiration behind the game and the level design, complete with a ton of gameplay.

Also, of furry note, there is a Sony-released screenshot that inclused Sly Cooper! So there ya go!

The weekly champion for Leage of Legends just so happens to have a little anthropomorphic interest this week, as Hecarim gallops into the game. He's a centaur who is described as a "towering, armored specter." He's quite evil. Here's what Riot games had to say about the iron-hooved champion:

"The latest champion of the league is on a rampage, looking to charge through the competition and straight into your able hands. Focusing on high mobility, initiation, and forcing enemies to move where he wants them, Hecarim is ready to inspire terror in your opponents. Want to find out more? Take a look at the Hecarim Champion Spotlight!"

 

Speaking of that Champion Spotlight, here it is below:

Source | Hecarim Champion Stats & Lore

World of Warcraft : Mists of Pandaria Beta Review - Pandaria Starting Zones

Mists of Pandaria is the greatly anticipated next expansion to the MMO titan World of Warcraft.  It raises the level cap and adds an expansion continent called Pandaria much in the same way Wrath of the Lich King added Northrend.  Mists of Pandaria also adds the Pandaren (Panda) race and the new Monk class.  The monk class has 3 specs available the Brewmaster (Tank), Mistwalker (Healer), and Windwalker (Melee DPS).  It also introduces a Pet Battle system similar to Pokemon.

For purposes of this review I picked a Pandaren Monk and went through the questline of the Pandaren starting zones.  I would like to begin by addressing some of the rumors about Mists of Pandaria.  Due to the huge popularity of the Annual Pass Blizzard has been forced to let players in to the beta in waves rather than all at once due to the well over 1 Million Annual Pass subscribers which Blizzard has publicly stated was well beyond their expectations for the program.  This access in waves has led to some angst among players due to some confusion as to how the invites are being selected and the apprent randomness in the way they were sent out.  As of today there have been at least 800,000 invites sent out for MoP.

This has led to complaints regarding the beta being laggy however there are 2 main factors contributing to lag in the beta. 

1) It should be kept in mind there are 4 beta servers and 800,000 people wanting to play so server crowding is an issue and when you first login the starting area is heavily populated with pandas standing or milling around which any WoW player will tell you when you have a high concentration of players in a single zone or worse a small area it generates a fair amount of lag even on the live WoW servers say during a Stormwind or Org raid on the faction leader.

2) When you create a character on the beta the default settings for graphics etc. are high settings by default so players may want to check those settings to ensure they are appropriate for their system.  The beta does not seem to accurately default to the recommended settings for your system hardware intially so new beta players should check this first so they can have a more enjoyable beta experience.

Once you take these 2 things into account and ensure your graphics settings are correct and move out of the intial spawn area with tons of people in it the lag on the beta settles down and it plays almost as well as smoothly as regular WoW.  Once blizzard opens up some additional beta servers to handle the load the server overcrowding issue should be resolved.

The overall design and graphics and music even in the early beta are wonderful and there is a smooth progression in gameplay from zone to zone as your Monk develops their skills and goes through the trials set for them.  The Blizzard art dept should get some serious kudos for the quality of their work in MoP so far it looks fantastic.  During the course of leveling through the Panda starting zones I only saw a few instances of graphical glitches in the game and the animations so far look good.

Even with the large amount of players in the beta I only encountered a few instances like this one where tons of Pandas all try to click the little scroll item to complete the quest and of course they don't bother to move but stand ontop of the quest item.

The game does add a few interesting reaction based areas that are often dubbed "Super Mario Levels"  There are at least 3 areas where the player cannot just run blindly through and not pay attention to the quest and NPC instructions otherwise they will suffer the consequences and in 2 cases outright die.

Listen to the NPC or you will DIE!  The Shrine of Inner Light is one area where failing to heed NPC instructions will get you killed and requires a bit of platforming skills or at least basic raid awareness to move out of fire as you make your way to the spirit of fire.  The passage was littered with Panda skeletons of those who failed the test.

After leading the fire spirit back to the central shrine you go off in search of the water spirit in a fantastic bamboo forest which I have to say I really enjoyed playing through.  It's here you engage in a series of quests to sharpen your monk character's skills and face off against monks and will likely get turned into a frog and chased by cranes that want to eat you.  At this point you should have the roll skill which works similar to rocket boots in that it allows your character to shoot forward and is great for travel and will likely prove useful in getting into or out of combat.  Oh yeah and Panda's take less fall damage because they're "Bouncy" not kidding it's a racial passive and works similar to feral druid kitty form.

And lastly there is the balance pole you have to make your way to the center and face off against monks to ring the bell and not get knocked off.  If you fall you hit the enchanted pool and get turned into a frog and there are hungry cranes around looking for a meal.  You can intentionally get off a pole by rotating your char/camera.

More to come in the second half on the MoP Beta Pandaria Starting Zones.

Sonic and Tails will make their final episodic venture this May, with the release dates and months finally being revealed by SEGA through the third trailer for the game. The game will be arriving May 15th on PSN, May 16th on XBLA, May on the App Store, June on Android Marketplace, and July on Windows phones. Phew! That's a lot of releasing!

And now, the third trailer for the game...which features more gameplay and a surprise bonus announcement for those who purchase both episode 1 and 2.

The deathly "Skullgirls" for the PSN and XBLA now has a release date! April 10th is when you'll be able to get your paws on the many morbid characters in the fighting game. Skullgirls is looking like it's going to be very popular on the tournament circuit and in the fighting community. It will be priced at $15 on PSN and 1200 MSP.

One girl in particular is of furry interests. Her name is Ms. Fortune (get it?) and she is described as a feline mistress:

"A feline feral, Nadia Fortune is the last surviving member of the Fishbone Gang, a notorious band of otherwise Dagonian thieves. Their last mission ended in tragedy: a failed attempt to steal the mysterious Life Gem from Lorenzo Medici resulted in their grisly deaths. Before meeting her own doom, Ms. Fortune swallowed the Life Gem and managed to digest it. The Gem’s power permeated her entire body, making it truly undying… even after being cut into several pieces."

Be on the lookout for her and all her creepy competitors next week! There's also a trailer featuring Ms. Fortune footage below.

Official Website

 

GWOnline recently published an extensive interview they had with ArenaNet about Guild Wars 2. The interview goes over how the beta was received and what changes will come because of the beta. Difficulties facing the team surrounding new professions and problems encountered in the beta seem to be smoothing over nicely in time for the game's impending release.

Game Designer Mike Ferguson on how the beta was received: "Overall the feedback was extremely positive. For WvW, the beta was extremely useful for us as we were able to learn a lot from playing with a large population over the weekend. After the beta ended we immediately went to work on implementing various updates to make siege weapons more effective, we’re optimizing various systems that were extremely taxing on our servers, and we’re looking at various ways to make WvW easier to learn for people who are first starting out."

Editor Commentary: GW2 is looking particularly good and is shaping up to be a serious contender against WoW especially given they are not going to require a monthly subscription.  There are plenty of choices as far as character customization and I will likely be going with a Charr which has some cool Wolfish attributes.  All in all I think ArenaNet is putting a huge amount of time and effort into coming out with a quality MMO at launch that will appeal to both PvE and PvP players and which offers a good variety of content that will appeal to gamers in the Furry Community.

Complete interview can be read here.

For those that loved the ability to have pets in Torchlight, you'll be excited to know that all three originals make a return in Torchlight II, along with three new loyal companions. In addition to the cat, wolf, ferret, and Chakawary, there is now a bulldog, panther, and hawk available to choose from. A video showing off the seven pets is available below. This is what Runic Games had to say about the furry friends:

"The life of a dungeon-clearing warrior can be a lonely one. Friends in your party may not be online, or may be questing abroad. To whom can a solitary skeleton-smasher turn for morale support? Fear not! Fluffy companions await you, whose inventories are surpassed only by their loyalty. Oh, and pointy teeth. Or claws."

Torchilight II captures all the flavor and excitement of the original game - while expanding the world and adding the features players wanted most, including online and LAN co-op multiplayer. It is being developed by Runic Games and will be released later this year (hopefully!)

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Co-developed by Grasshopper Manufacture and Digital Reality, and published by Microsoft Studios, Sine Mora is a dieselpunk shoot 'em up that provides a unique take on the genre, where time is the ultimate factor. Mixing classic shooter sensibilities with next-gen presentation, Sine Mora is a gorgeous shmup that appeals to both hardcore and casual gamers alike. Coming exclusively to Xbox LIVE Arcade, Sine Mora features over 60 combinations of planes, characters (furry characters!) and time manipulation devices to complete every beautifully-crafted stage with scaling difficulty. All of this is set to an epic score of soaring heights, composed by Akira Yamaoka, acclaimed for his works on Shadows of the Damned and the Silent Hill series.

The Mists of Pandaria Press Tour in 5 Minutes
If you only have a few minutes to read about the Mists of Pandaria press tour, we have summarized the major points below. If you have time later you should really go back and read the whole thing!

• The final patch of Mists of Pandaria will be the Siege of Orgrimmar! Both factions lay siege to the city to bring Garrosh down and end his reign of Warchief.
• The new LFR loot system will allow everyone to roll individually. The highest few rolls will win an item from the boss. Upon winning a roll, if the boss has an item that you can use, you will win it. If not, you will get some amount of gold. It will only be in LFR to begin with, but can be added to other parts of the game later.
• An 11th character slot has been added.
• AoE Looting has been added.
• There will not be an item squish in Mist of Pandaria.
• No new race models are ready to be added yet.
• There will be nine level 90 heroics for players as well as three raids with 14 raid bosses and three difficulties. There will be an additional two world bosses.
• Scenarios will take place at level 90, in an instance, and reward reputation and Valor points. They don't need a healer, tank, and DPS, just DPS is fine. Each will take 10 to 30 minutes to complete and five or more will be available for launch.
• In Challenge Modes, the vast majority of players will most likely earn a bronze medal even if they are a relatively unskilled player. After a player earns all the medals at the Bronze level, they will be rewarded with an achievement and title. Completing all of the Silver medals will earn a set of spectacular gear for transmogrification, and completing all of the gold will earn a unique epic flying mount. Challenge modes will be available for the six new dungeons at launch.
• Cloud Serpents are the Pandaren's mount of choice. You can raise your own by doing 20 days of daily quests.
• The Tillers faction will let you run your own farm! The farmer's market will provide daily quest to improve your farm every day, you will be able to clear plots of land and plant things like cooking ingredients, herbalism nodes, gifts for NPCs to build your reputation... etc.
• Warlocks got the most class changes in MoP, along with new pets.
• There will be more mounts and less color swaps for different rewards.
• They are adding armor to creatures to give them varied appearances, something other than just simple color changes.
• There are now seven zones, up from five. This was done to add more content to the game and give players a less linear progression path so that leveling for a second or third time isn’t the exact same.
• There will be one new arena and two new battlegrounds at launch.
• PvP pet battles are going to be fun and causal, only tracking the number of wins and not the number of losses. When fighting another player, you cannot see the other players name or communicate with them.
• Currently, every race except Goblin and Worgen can learn the ways of the monk.
• The Pre Mists of Pandaria Patch will be roughly two weeks before launch and bring simple rewards. It might involve a scenario with Theramore and the Alliance vs Horde theme. Chen Stormstout might also come to the local cities and get players excited about what is coming.

For full details go here to MMO Champion: http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2687-Mists-of-Pandaria-Press-Tour

Sonic fans! Bad news! (or good news, depending on your stance) Producer Takashi Iizuka of Sonic Team said in an interview that the team has no plans to release more episodes after Sonic 4: Episode 2. "We are looking forward to hearing the feedback from the users for Episode 2, but we are currently not planning to release another episode. We just want to see how the users accept this episode."

And thus ends the Sonic 4 episodic saga of news, miscues, and delays. Hopefully this episode is a good one to go out on!

Yes, you read that right. Laika Believes is a game in development by Minicore Studios that features Laika, a dog that has fallen from the stars; a dog that spoke, that was clad in silver metal armor, and was armed with mysterious weapons. The premise of the game is that the Soviets have become the supreme rulers of the Earth, with small resistance movements trying to make a stand, but being unable to do so without some "supernatural" force.

The game is being developed for XBLA and PC, as of this posting.

'Laika Believes' is a classic Metroidvania platformer, featuring: (from the website)

• Massive, nonlinear levels that model the layouts of real locations in a way as of yet unseen in other platformers
• Large, choice-rich skill trees that let players approach the game how they want to
• A novel defensive mechanic that lets players turn the firepower of Laika's enemies against them
• Smoothly flowing, fast-paced shooting action
• A story of struggle and hope, full of twists and revelations
• Rich, evocative art depicting a world overgrown by a technologically ascendant Soviet empire
• Secrets and rewards hidden in every corner for the determined player

Concept Art

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